Allen Iverson

March 04, 2010

The 76ers cruised to a big, 19-point defeat in Atlanta on Wednesday night, which in the scheme of things is probably for the best. The Sixers are the very embodiment of a team that is damned if they do and damned if they don’t. The team could very well catch fire over the final 23 games and sneak into the last playoff spot.

Think about that for a second — a No. 8 seed means at least two extra home dates with LeBron James and Shaquille O’Neal in town. That’s two sellouts for folks to come watch another visiting club instead of the hometown team.

That’s the point though, isn’t it? The Sixers aren’t good enough to get those extra two games against LeBron and Shaq, and they aren’t bad enough to make a difference in the lottery. If that doesn’t explain this team, nothing else does.

But now they don’t even have a hook or an angle. Oh sure, basketball junkies might want to tune in to check out how Lou Williams, Jrue Holliday and Thad Young fare the rest of the way, but your common, everyday sports fan who is simply interested in the wins, losses and not the nuance of it is likely gone.

Not that they were hanging around too much this season to begin with.

See, Allen Iverson is gone. Oh sure, we’ve strolled down this path before, but really, Iverson is done. We mean it this time. Not that we didn’t mean it before, like when he was traded to Denver, sent to Detroit, allegedly causing scenes in riverboat casinos and then signing on for Memphis for just three games. Hell, by this point we’ve probably written the story about Allen Iverson’s last stand in the NBA three times already. Truth be told, the guy was probably done when he bailed out on the Pistons late last season.

This time though it really is over because no other NBA team is sillier than the Sixers. Sure, the cynical types might look at the December signing of Iverson as a way to sell a few more tickets, which really didn’t work out quite like everyone had hoped. After all, that line about not being able to go home again wouldn’t be a saying if it wasn’t true.

Still, nothing has changed. One minute Iverson was here, the next he slipped away mysteriously. This time there was no trade, indefinite suspension or any of the old standbys. Instead, Iverson allegedly left the team because his four-year old daughter is sick with an undisclosed illness. Actually, not only hasn’t anyone spoken about the girl’s illness, but even those usually in the know say the information is particularly cryptic.

That makes it easier to understand this end for Iverson. When the health of a child or family matters is the concern, everything else seems pretty unimportant. Let’s just hope for the sake of little Messiah Iverson that the doctors can figure this out.

Forget about the fact that Iverson went away for five games, missed the All-Star Game, came back for a couple of games before disappearing again only to turn up at a benefit in Charlotte. The truth is Iverson’s departure not only was typical of him and the exact opposite of his entrance at every stop of his career, it is also indicative of how Sixers’ almost always go out.

Think about it for a second… aside from Julius Erving (who had been offered up in a bunch of alleged trades during his waning years, including one for the No. 3 pick in the 1984 draft… Chicago smartly decided to keep the pick), which Sixers player went away on good terms?

Let’s go through the list… Wilt was traded. Moses and Barkley were traded, too. Andrew Toney had the injuries and the battles with management, while Mo Cheeks was traded away but wasn’t told until he found Michael Barkann waiting on his doorstep. When a player and the Sixers are really done with each other, usually that’s it. After all, aside from World B. Free there aren’t any old-timers hanging around the games. Sure, fences get mended and everyone gets back on good terms, but when it’s over it’s over.

There’s no going back.

Sure, we’ll see Iverson again. The Sixers will probably put his No. 3 in the rafters next to Wilt, Mo Cheeks, Barkley and Doc, and Iverson is undoubtedly a Hall of Famer. We’ll surely see him at the induction ceremony.

But what we won’t see is how Iverson deals with life away from basketball and the spotlight and the adjustment that sometimes is so difficult. We also won’t know about how he handles the family matters that have besieged him, though we can only hope he comes out ahead.

March 03, 2010

I imagine musicians get a complex when they are about to
go into the studio and hear a recording of Jimi Hendrix. Jimi, as we all
learned in school, was a force of nature. He was like Mother Theresa and
Genghis Khan all rolled into one when he held a guitar in his hands. How can
anyone measure up to that, the musicians must think. Jimi was playing hard ball
and everyone else is just trying to bat it off a tee.

That’s the way it is for us sentence writers when Bob Ford and Mike Sielski walk into the room. Oh sure, it might sound like I’m
blowing smoke, and you know what… I kind of am. But whether they know it or
not, those guys know how to work a room and when they say things people have no
other people have no choice to but to take the words to heart.

So when Bob told me, “You’re awful,” well, I just
couldn’t write it off. After all, I have never known Bob to be wrong. Ever. The
fact is, he is smarter than almost every person you know. The same goes for
Mike, too. If he isn’t right about something, he can explain why better than
anyone out there.

But Bob is a good sport. He came into our little show,
drank his beverage, ate his ham sandwich and participated in a lively
discussion about everything. He even taught us about physics and the
international dateline. The same goes for Sielski, too. The guy is an author of
a book. Better yet, Mike wrote a real book like a real author and not some
nonsense about lists of perceived greatness according to some guy and his
faulty memories. Who wants to read that? Moreover, who wants to chop down trees
to print those pages?

Put it this way: Mike has contributed to our culture and
our collective discourse. Mike has a legacy.

And with that, the gang got together for the third
episode of our little dog-and-pony show with two heavyweights. Once again we
talked about the Olympics and hockey as well as Allen Iverson and the idea of exclusivity and media semantics.

Bob told a story about his days from hanging around with Charles Barkley and Mike just said a
bunch of smart things.

Oh yeah, Dennis
Deitch was back and offered a life tip, while Dan Roche stuck around long enough to offer some well-reasoned
points about the local basketball team. But guess what… Ol’ Dan bought a house
last weekend, too. Real estate bubble my ass…

Meanwhile, Sarah
Baicker and I just tried to keep up with all the wizened souls we brought
into our lair.

February 12, 2010

We’re all pretty much sick of the snow and of winter in
general right about now. Call it cabin fever or just the doldrums of February
and it’s easy to understand why a lot of folks are just beat. Tired, sick and
beat.

When we finally come up for air after this weekend it
will be a six-day weekend for the kids. In the meantime, the little jackals
will continue to mercilessly pummel me with half-assed little kid snowballs
before waiting until my back is turned before attacking with some arcane
martial arts punch and/or kick.

Someone (for the love of God!) open up the schools! My
body is officially a giant wound.

Hopefully, there will be nothing to dig or defend against
this weekend so some of us can recoup from a week of beatings given out by
Mother Nature and my offspring[1].
In the meantime, there’s plenty to keep an eye on this weekend and strangely,
none of it has anything to do with the pro teams from Philadelphia.

Oh sure, spring training opens next week, but that’s
largely ceremonial to begin with since nearly every player has a.) been working
out at the training facility already, or b.) been working out on their own with
their trainer/guru/wife/teammates. But then again, baseball is pretty much all
ceremonial. There’s all that whiny, metaphoric Opening Day stuff that should
make anyone with any association with baseball want to stuff their head in an
oven. At least were at a point in the game’s history where we can laugh at the
rituals, traditions and rituals. With the drugs, bad behavior and institutional
racism that dot the game’s long history, a little ceremonial pining for dates
on a calendar isn’t all that bad.

Speaking of ceremonies, apparently the winter Olympics begins
in a couple of hours or something—it’s tough to tell. Since all the snow
earmarked for the folks in Vancouver has been transplanted on top of us, sane
people are winter-ed out. Besides, what are these events? The luge? I did that
when I woke up with a head cold and wanted to clear my nasal passages. Ski
jumping and free-style moguls? Whatever… I did moves better than those the
first time I ever put skis on my feet. No, I didn't try to make those moves, but that's just a technicality.

Big deal, right? Apparently the winter Olympics are a big
enough deal to shut down the NHL for two weeks right in the middle of the
season. Can you imagine that? The season was motoring on as its wont to do in
February and then all of a sudden the players leave and join different teams
for two weeks… and nobody cares! Remember the last time the NHL took a break
for the whole season back in 2004-05? Remember? They called it a “lockout” or
something?

No, I don’t remember it, either.

Nothing against the winter Olympics, but I doubt I’m
going to watch. In fact, the only way I’ll watch is if I slip on some ice, luge
down the hill in front of the house and end up in traction in the hospital. If
that happens (and only if that happens) and I can’t reach the remote (because I’m
in traction and my wife LOVES the pagaentry and the costumes of the ice skating), maybe I’ll watch. Hopefully that Johnny Weir will be skating, too.
I like that dude because he fits into a the long line of flamboyant, trash-talking
athletes like Reggie Jackson, Larry Bird, Terrell Owens, Michael Jordan and
Dick Buttons.[2]
Johnny Weir is also from the southern end of Lancaster County, which is a part
of the country that put the “thump” into “bible thumping.”

It is both perfectly logical and incredibly insane that
Johnny Weir is from Lancaster County, Pa. Please don’t ask for an explanation. If
you know, it makes sense.

Speaking of trash-talking flamboyance, the NBA All-Star
weekend takes place on Saturday where they will dunk, shoot and then play the
All-Star Game in a football stadium in Dallas. According to reports, they are
expecting 92,000 people to show up, which commissioner David Stern says will be
the largest crowd to see a basketball game “in the history of the world.”
However, Allen Iverson will not be amongst the attendees at the All-Star Game
even though he was voted in by the fans as a starter. No, we’re not going to
get into the pros and cons of fan All-Star voting and/or Iverson’s unworthiness
to participate in the weekend’s events designed to celebrate the majesty and
the egos of the best players on the planet. The truth is the NBA has the best
All-Star Game going simply because they don’t do that whole bit where every-team-must-be-represented
schtick that baseball does. Who wants to see the best player from a bad team?

No, making it to the All-Star Game in the NBA is
significant. It carries some weight because only 12 guys get to go. In last
summer’s baseball All-Star Game, Zach Duke was selected to be in the game. Oh
sure, 2009 was his best season because he went 11-16 with an ERA below 5, but
in the NBA an MVP candidate (Brandon Jennings, a stretch, but hey… he’s a
candidate) is relegated to the rookie game.

Nevertheless, the concept of the All-Star Games and
putting sledding on TV and calling it the Olympics is pretty old fashioned. You
know, old fashioned like the mail delivery that led to the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue to be shoved through my door.

Look, even a beat-up and tired dude like me knows
old-fashioned when he sees it and this time it was shoved through the mail slot
in my door. So when I walked over to pick up the pile of magazines and junk mail
on the ground, I saw Brooklyn Decker
staring coquettishly from behind a bank statement. But rather than going for
the rather flimsy-feeling magazine, I went for the bank statement. After all,
in this age the fact that the bank is actually telling me I have money is the
biggest turn-on.

Brooklyn Decker?

Yawn...

Look, as one of those so-called red-blooded Americans, I
like half-naked women as much as the next person. Think about it... what else Americans
really do well any more. There's all-you-can-eat buffets; whining about
the weather; spiraling, out-of-control credit debt; and scantily clad men and
women. That's us.

U-S-A! U-S-A!

But c'mon, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue?
In 2010? Really?

Poor Brooklyn. She looks so hip, young and fresh on the
cover of a magazine sold to a demographic filthy with men in their 40s. Is
there anything less hip than that? Worse, in the age where we can see anything
at any time with our onDemand and high-speed Internet connections, what's the
point of the swimsuit issue? Is it for the exotic settings or top-level
photography? The product placement for bathing suits that only 12 people in the
world can squeeze in to?

Whatever it is, the formula doesn't seem to work anymore.
Call it an anachronism to a different era when things like swimsuit models
weren't ubiquitous. Back in its heyday, the swimsuit issue really cornered the
market for such things. There was no Maxim or any other so-called men's
lifestyle magazines littering the newsstands the way they do now. Actually, in
the halcyon days of SI's swimsuit issue, it was all or nothing. If a guy wanted
to see that sort of thing he had to go to the back corner of a drug store and
reach to the highest shelf where they kept the Playboy and Penthouse
wrapped in a brown paper bag (or at least that’s what I’m told).

Yes, the good old days. Sigh!

Yet here we are in the digital age and Sports
Illustrated is sticking to its guns. Just like it does every year, the
magazine offers up freakishly air-brushed and pushed up women dressed in
impractical swim wear. Or, barring that, body paint.

Yep, been there, done that.

Maybe Sports Illustrated already knows its
swimsuit issue is tired, yet keeps trotting it out there (and giving it away
for free on its web site) because it can. Think about it, are there any other companies whose egos are so out of control [3]that
they can fly staffs of people to remote points on the globe in order to take
pictures of women next to nothing? When times were flush it was no big deal,
but in this economic climate? Really? These days when folks are losing jobs and
their homes, sweet, little, hipless Brooklyn strutting around in the Maldives
in her fancy britches might be a little excessive.

Can't they just blue screen or Photoshop in the beach?
Hell, they airbrush out everything else, right?

Can they brush out all the snow while they're at it?

[1]Am I allowed to lock them in the garage
until the snow melts or school is back in session (whichever comes first)? Is
that wrong?

[2]Is there a more perfect name for a champion
ice skater than Dick Buttons? Silly question… the answer is no.

February 10, 2010

Even though the 76ers are playing some decent basketball
lately and slowly making up ground for the No. 8 seed in the Eastern Conference
playoff picture, some fans of the team are actually aghast. Winning games and
slipping into the playoffs doesn’t serve these guys well, the argument goes.

There is some logic to that, but not much. Sure, the
Sixers might be able to add a missing piece to help build for the future,
however, even if they lose every game for the rest of the season they have a
small shot at nabbing the top pick.

So what’s wrong with making the playoffs? Based on the
Sixers’ draft history winning ball games and trying to rebuild with free agents
(always difficult to do with the NBA’s salary cap) might be the best tact.

Sure, we know all about the recent picks like Jrue
Holliday, Marreese Speights, Thaddeus Young, Lou Williams, Andre Iguodala and
Sam Dalembert, who are all solid players and should help the team in the
future. All of those players were selected well out of the top 10 picks (except for Iguodala) from
draft classes that weren’t known for being particularly deep, so in that regard
the team did pretty well.

It’s just when the Sixers get into the top handful of
picks where things get crazy. Yes, Allen Iverson was the top overall pick in
1996 and he’s headed for the Hall of Fame, and Charles Barkley was taken fifth
overall in the famous 1984 draft. But for every Iverson and Barkley there is a
Shawn Bradley, Sharone Wright, Charles Smith, Keith Van Horn, Marvin “Bad News”
Barnes and whatever the hell that was in 1986.

Indeed, June hasn’t been the kindest month for the
Sixers.

Just look at what
happened from 1973to 1975 where the Sixers had four picks in the top five and
six first-round selections. That’s where following the NBA-record nine-win
season the team took Doug Collins with the top pick in ’73 (not bad), took
Roman Catholic and St. Joe’s alum Mike Bantom with the fourth-pick before it
was disallowed for some reason[1],
and then snagged Raymond Lewis from California State University at Los Angeles
at No. 18.

Collins, of course, was a four-time All-Star and scored
22 points per game in during the run to the Finals in 1977. However, injuries
ended Collins’ career before he turned 30. Bantom spent nine seasons in the NBA
before closing out his career with the Sixers in 1982. Instead of latching on
with the ’83 title team, Bantom played in Italy.

The dubiousness of the ’73 draft was trumped in a big way
in 1974 where the Sixers took Bad News Barnes with the second overall pick. It
actually might have been an interesting pick had Barnes not jumped to the
Spirit of St. Louis in the ABA before becoming the poster child for the era of
bad behavior in the 1970s.

In the history of nicknames, Barnes’ was perfect. During
his rookie season with St. Louis, he disappeared for days presumably to renegotiate
his contract—in the middle of his first season, no less. After days off the
grind (much easier to do in 1974), Barnes was finally located with his agent in
a pool hall in Dayton, Oh.

They always turn up in the first place you should look…

Barnes played in just 315 pro games, made the playoffs
once in the ABA and appeared in two ABA All-Star Games. That was when he was in
relative control. When Barnes was in full Bad News mode, it was pretty dark.
Check out this interview he
gave to Fanhouse last December:

"I was making
40 to 50 grand a week [selling] the drugs,'' said Barnes. "I was making so
much money (in the selling of marijuana) it was hard to stay focused (on
basketball).''

Barnes said he served as an investor with drug kingpin Paul Edward Hindelang Jr.,
who would later cooperate with the government and forfeit $50 million in
drug-trafficking proceeds. Barnes said Hindelang's right-hand man was Roosevelt
Becton, a friend of the basketball player whom he describes as the
"godfather'' who "ran St. Louis.''

"Hindelang was the guy who started the 'mother ship,' which would park
five miles away and boats would shoot for the (Colombia) shore,'' Barnes said.
"He got a two-ton freighter a bunch of us (contributed for financially).
Then it would go down and buy two tons of Colombian marijuana.

"It was the
best marijuana. We bought it from the Colombian government for a dollar a pound
... I was investing money (in the operation).''

Talk about wasted talent:

"I was one of the five best players on
the planet, period"

"I would have been one of the 50 greatest players of all time,'' said
Barnes, 57, who now works with at-risk teenagers in his Men to Men program in
his hometown of Providence, R.I., telling them the pitfalls of drugs. "I
was one of the five best players on the planet period (with St. Louis). Just
ask anybody (from) back then ... I was kicking some butt. ... But I was going
on a downhill spiral. I met drug traffickers in St. Louis and they showed me
another way of life. And that was detrimental to my basketball career.''

Maybe it wasn’t so bad that Barnes didn’t end up with the
Sixers. Imagine Barnes in the frontcourt with Darryl Dawkins and Julius Erving
with a team that featured Collins, George McGinnis, World B. Free, Henry Bibby,
Steve Mix and Caldwell Jones. That’s a team that could have gone 11 deep with
Jellybean Bryant and Harvey Catchings filling roles, too.

Instead, Barnes was a wasted No. 2 pick in a deep
draftwhere the Sixers could have
snapped up any one of the 18 players who went on to play at least 550 games in
the NBA. This includes Hall of Famer George Gervin.

The team finished up the three-year stretch of top picks
by getting Dawkins with the No. 5 pick before swiping Free in the second round.
In 1975, the Sixers did about just as well as they could do, arguably getting
the two players that went on to have the best careers of the draft class.

Still, the team didn’t really come together until Doc
came aboard in 1976. And despite the loss to the Blazers in the ’77 Finals and
to the Lakers in ’80 and ‘82, the championship squad wasn’t built on top draft
picks, though Andrew Toney was the No. 8 pick in the 1980 draft.

They got Mo Cheeks late in the second round in 1978,
Clint Richardson late in the second in 1979, as well as Franklin Edwards and
Mark McNamara late in the first rounds of the 1981 and 1982 drafts. Otherwise,
the best Sixers’ team was built with trades and signings… Bobby Jones came from
Denver for McGinnis; they bought Doc from the Nets; Marc Iavaroni was signed
after the Knicks waived him; and Moses arrived in a trade with Houston in which
the Sixers gave up Caldwell Jones and their first pick of the ’83 draft.

Not bad.

If only the Sixers could have drafted as well when given
a top pick. Oh sure, Barkley and Iverson were hard to mess up, especially since
two of the greatest players ever were taken ahead of Sir Chuck (Hakeem Olajuwon
and Michael Jordan). But just imagine what could have been if the Sixers had
simply drafted Brad Daugherty with the top pick of the 1986 draft and dropped
him into the frontcourt with Barkley and Moses.

Instead, just before it was their turn to make the No. 1 pick, owner Harold Katz sent it to Cleveland for Roy Hinson (yes, Roy Hinson!) before dealing Moses and Terry Catledge to Washington for Cliff Robinson and Jeff Ruland.

/shakes head/

Those trades made little sense in 1986 and make even less sense now.

What were they thinking?

Imagine those three up front with Cheeks and Hersey
Hawkins in the backcourt.

Go ahead… we’ll wait.

Now imagine that the Sixers can knock off the Celtics or
Pistons as the ‘80s end and instead of taking Christian Welp at No. 16 in 1987,
they get Mark Jackson (third all-time in assists) or Reggie Lewis (perennial All-Star
before his untimely death). Sure, the No. 3 pick of Charles Smith and
subsequent deal for Hawkins worked out, but what if the Sixers would have just
kept the pick and taken Mitch Richmond instead. That lineup turns to Moses,
Barkley, Daugherty, Cheeks and Richmond.

Sigh!

Strangely, the Sixers eventually have had a bunch of No.
1 picks in recent years, starting with Iverson, Joe Smith, Derrick Coleman,
Elton Brand and Chris Webber.

What? They couldn’t swing a deal for Kwame Brown?

Try this out—from 1990 to 1999 drafts, the Sixers have had 20 top
10 draft picks end up on their roster. Ready for them?

So the Sixers certainly have had chances to rebuild with
the draft, only it really hasn’t worked out that way. Even the roster for the
2001 run to the Finals was constructed with trades and free-agent moves.
Considering that as recently as 1995 to 1997 that the team had a top three pick
each year and kept one player longer than two seasons explains all one needs to
know about the Sixers in the draft.

Tank it? No t'anks.

[1] My research came up small. Why did the
Sixers draft Mike Bantom No. 4, have the pick disallowed and then watch
Banton go to Phoenix at No. 8?

February 09, 2010

The 76ers took care of Minnesota on Tuesday night in a game that was decided pretty early on. Thanks to a 12-0 early in the second quarter that spurred a 73-point first half for a Wachovia Center record, the Sixers rolled to their fifth victory in a row.

While it’s debatable whether or not the winning streak and positive gains in the standards serve the team or the franchise well, that’s not the main issue here. Instead, the Sixers are 20-31 with one game to go in Toronto on Wednesday night… if they can get out of snowy Philadelphia, that is.

But yes, the Sixers are heading into the All-Star Break feeling pretty good about things. Considering they are just 4½ games out of the final playoff spot in the East, it’s no wonder. Throw in the fact that the Sixers poured in 119 points with 30 assists and it proves that the team just might be pulling together.

So is it any coincidence that the Sixers have won five in a row and scored at least 101 points in the last four games without Allen Iverson?

How about the fact that with Iverson away from the team in order to tend to a personal matter, Willie Green has stepped into the lineup and shot 61 percent (22-for-36) with 57 points in four games? Or better yet, how about coach Eddie Jordan saying the big reason for the five-game winning streak has been the leadership from Green?

Coincidence?

What do you think?

With Iverson away, the Sixers have been playing exactly the way most folks expected when they started the season in late October. They are loose, confident and looking very much like the team that won 32 of their final 59 games last season to slip into the playoffs. Moreover, the sense around the team is that everything is right where it’s supposed to be.

“To me it’s been a combination of guys stepping up and a bunch of guys all playing well at the same time,” Green said.

“We’re starting to look more like the team that past couple of years that went to the playoffs. We’re just busy trying to dig ourselves out of a hole.”

And that’s just it. Would folks rather see the Sixers make a run at the playoffs and squeeze into a low seed and a probable first-round exit, or is it better to take a chance on the ping-pong balls? Sure, it would make sense for the team to attempt to add and develop the missing pieces through the draft, but even that’s no guarantee for anything. Just think about how many times the Sixers have been in this position in the past only to land on their bottoms in the same spot the next year.

Just look at when the Sixers had the No. 2 overall pick in 1993 and took Shawn Bradley. Thanks to that pick the team ended up with the No. 6 pick in 1994 (Sharone Wright), No. 3 in 1995 (Jerry Stackhouse), No. 1 in 1996 (Iverson), No. 2 in 1997 (Keith Van Horn), and No. 8 in 1998 (Larry Hughes). With the players taken in those drafts the Sixers should have been set for a decade based on the tank theory, but all that happened was they ended up in the lottery six years in a row with six different coaches.

Anyone want to take a chance with the No. 9 pick added to this bunch?

How about this plan instead:

Let Iverson play out the string and then sail off into the sunset. If he wants to keep playing next season, let him—just not with the Sixers if he demands on taking a starting gig and minutes away from anyone on the roster. After all, the Sixers aren’t the only team that has had success this season when Iverson went away. Just look at what Memphis has done since The Answer “retired.” Rather than being a mentoring veteran on a team with seven players in their first or second years in the NBA, and 10 players with no more than three years of experience, Iverson threw a fit about coming off the bench.

Kind of ironic that the oldest guy on the team was also the biggest baby.

The numbers explain it all. Four straight wins in which the team has averaged 107 points for the Sixers, a .553 winning percentage in the hardcore Western Conference for Memphis and a 9-16 record for his teams when he gets into a game this season.

Besides, at this point in their careers there is nothing Iverson does better than Green.

So there’s the elephant in the room. Clearly the Sixers are a better team without Iverson, but for now the players are going to (unironically) chalk it up to things finally starting to come together.

“Our defense is playing a little better and we’re communicating a little more,” said Andre Iguodala, who has scored 19.3 points per game in Iverson’s absence. “On offense we got in a good flow, too.”

No one is admitting as much now, but for the Sixers the answer appears to be no Answer.

February 01, 2010

There are human beings that travel around in order to cover the Philadelphia 76ers. Believe it or not, they are smart and caring people who live lives and have others who care about them. In fact, guys like Martin Frank and Dennis Deitch or two fellows that I consider friends and I wish them no ill will.

Apparently the team in which they cover is a little more sadistic, but we'll get to that in a moment. If these folks are going to survive the season and come out on the other side of it OK, we should know a little something about them just in case...

Martin and Dennis are as talented as they come in this business of ours. Martin always cuts to the heart of a story and he sees things that most people miss. He and I also spent a long May afternoon wiling away the time at Pimilco before Smarty Jones ran to a record-smashing victory in the 2004 Preakness. Since there were a slew of races on the undercard before the big race and they had a betting window in the press box, Martin and I decided the only logical thing to do was to study the race form and put a few dollars on a horse or two.

If I remember the day correctly, Martin did OK with the horses and the writing. I did better with the writing than I did with the horses. On the plus side, I came away with a better understanding of the phenomenon known as, "The betting window in the press box." I'm on the pro side of the argument (if there is even an argument).

Deitch is the most clever dude covering sports in Philadelphia. That’s not hyperbole or blowing smoke, either. Facts are facts and if there is anything remotely interesting going on with the 76ers, Deitch is the first place to check. That’s not a knock on anyone else, it’s just that Dennis sees through all the traps and talking points floated out there.

Let’s just say there was a bit of a difference in the quality of play in the two games. After watching the Lakers handle the Sixers last Friday night, my interest was piqued enough to want to watch how they measure up against a better opponent. Better yet, it was quite a treat to see a stellar performance from Celtics’ point guard Rajon Rondo. That dude can play.

Meanwhile, up at the Meadowlands it didn’t take very long for my heart to sink into the pit of my stomach and immediately feel a bit of empathy for Martin, Dennis and the rest of the gang. Did they get hazard pay for traveling to North Jersey to watch that game? Do their eyes still ache more than a day later?

I can only imagine that Deitch probably had to drop to one knee in order to catch his breath and re-organize his thoughts shortly after the final horn sounded. Poor guy.

The Sixers beat the Nets on Sunday evening, but not by much. Thanks to… well, thanks to no one in particular, the Sixers dealt the Nets their 42nd defeat (83-79) of the season in 46 games. For those scoring at home, the Nets are on pace to finish 7-75 this season, which is two wins shy of the all-time worst season in pro sports by the 1972-73 76ers. Frankly, it’s amazing that any team in this age of sports (with expansion and a salary cap) outside of the Los Angeles Clippers could flirt with a record that seemed like the NBA’s version of Joe DiMaggio’s hitting streak.

Yet like the ’73 Sixers once were, the Nets are 4-42, but just missed pulling off their second win in three games. If the Nets could have won on Sunday night, it seemingly makes the record for the worst season safe for another year. But if there was ever a game the Nets should have won, it was the one against the Sixers. After all, the Nets’ defense held the Sixers to 36.5 percent shooting from the field and out-rebounded them, 50-47.

Looks like the Nets might have a date with destiny.

“I looked at the stat sheet and saw we shot, what, 36 percent? And still won the ball game? Man,” Allen Iverson said. “Obviously they didn’t play well at all for us to be able to win a game like that.”

What about the gang who had to sit there and then write about the game afterwards? How demoralized are those guys? Do you think it’s easy watching bad games night after night? Having seen the 2002 and 2004 Phillies up close the answer is an obvious, no. Losing is a communicable ailment that is airborne and contagious. It infects all that it comes in contact with and ruins the good will of kind-hearted people.

Worse, a game like Sunday’s in the Meadowlands can break a man’s spirit. When the game ended I was worried about the writing corps and feared that something bad was going to happen. Maybe after filing a story they would go to their car in the parking lot and find that the tires of the car had been slashed. Maybe after watching the game someone developed a rash and needed to rush down the Turnpike in order to get something lanced?

These are the times that try men’s souls.

Fortunately, morale appears to be high. In the Delaware County Daily Times, Mr. Deitch looked at the game from a historical perspective. Sure, the Sixers won the game, but in the process they nearly took the sport back to its peach basket days.

Deitch wrote:

If you said that this abomination set the game of basketball back 50 years, Wilt Chamberlain would crawl out of his grave and smack you for disrespecting his era.

Burn the tape. What, they don’t use tape any longer? Melt the memory card.

If you witnessed this game, seek therapy. And you might want to enter a decontamination shower, like Meryl Steep in “Silkwood.”

It really was that awful.

Here’s the ugliness Double D describes: The Nets scored just two fastbreak points in the game and were whistled for a shot-clock violation when trailing by two points with less than two minutes to go in the game. With feats like that one has to wonder about the Nets’ chances against the Washington Generals.

It wasn’t too much better on the winning side, either, with the Sixers missing 16 shots in the final quarter. More telling was the fact that the Sixers didn’t break into double-figures in scoring in the final quarter until the final minute. By that point the Sixers had to score because the Nets kept fouling them to stop the clock.

And to think, after the game some of the Sixers had the nerve to talk about how bad the Nets are.

“It is a frustrating thing. We just can’t play down to the level of our competition,” Iverson said.

“I’ve been on some pretty poor teams, but never that poor,” said Elton Brand, who went from going 66-7 in two seasons at Duke, to 15-67 in his first season in the NBA with the Bulls.

To be fair, maybe Sunday’s epic wasn’t the worst game ever or set the league back a half century, but it wasn’t one to be proud of, either.

Wrote Deitch:

So, maybe the fog of time just made it seem like Sunday night's game was the worst. But trust me -- this was a once-in-a-decade display. There were at least five shots that hit off the side or bottom of the backboard. (I'm still trying to figure out where the hell Willie Green was aiming that fourth-quarter shot.) The general sloppiness and disorder was brutal to watch, and the fact that both teams saved their worst play for the fourth quarter -- you know, when you're supposed to put your best foot forward -- made it a form of torture to watch.

January 30, 2010

Wild and unparalleled success in sports is an odd thing to witness up close. So too is TMZ-like celebrity complete with television crews and boom mics (literally) chronicling every single step a guy takes on his way home from work.

Actually, it’s probably true of watching elite-level success in any occupation though it seems doubtful that there is celebrity attached to a top surgeon not on Oprah or CNN. Chances are a big-time scientist does not ever have to worry about being mobbed by adoring fans at the mall.

But for guys like Phil Jackson and Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers, success is usually a very strange thing. In fact, it seems as if there is something about both men that makes others do things they wouldn’t normally do in hope of being noticed. Oh yes, Kobe and Phil make regular folks act brave.

Think about it—if you saw Jackson or Kobe on the street chances are you might shout something to them, or even stop and ask a question. Better yet, you might even ask for an autograph or a handshake. And yes, this is odd. It is especially odd because no matter what Jackson or Bryant have accomplished, they must be accountable to complete strangers.

Who do you have to be accountable to?

Yes, with great power comes great responsibility… or whatever it is that Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben taught us. The rules are different successful sports stars whether they like it or not.

For instance, look at Jackson. At 5:30 p.m. on Friday afternoon he was obligated to answer some question from the Los Angeles and Philly media on topics that he probably never contemplated. Like had he ever thought about the significance of owning the all-time record for victories in Lakers’ history? After all, with the 98-91victory over the 76ers at the Wachovia Center on Friday night, Jackson needs one more win to tie Pat Riley with 533 regular-season victories.

Does Jackson think about that kind of stuff?

“No.”

Not in the least?

“It’s just a matter of hanging around and showing up to work. That’s 90 percent of it… who said that, Woody Allen?”

Indeed that was Woody Allen who astutely pointed out that 90 percent of life was just showing up. The other 10 percent, perhaps, is left for answering questions and filling out paperwork.

Jackson is the only person in North American professional sports to win 10 championships as a coach. Certainly it helps that all he had to do was “show up” and coach a pair of teams with players Michael Jordan, Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal, but Jackson also won an 11th title as a coach of the CBA's Albany Patroons when his star was Frankie J. Sanders.

The J. stood for "Jumpshot."

Still, after six titles with Jordan and the Bulls and four in Los Angeles, Jackson is asked to ponder which team he should most be linked to.

Again, it’s doubtful Jackson has ever mulled an answer to anything remotely close to that question. After all, his legacy is pretty safe with both franchises.

“There's a generation of people that identify with the Showtime Lakers of the ‘80s and similarly with the '90s Chicago teams,” Jackson said. “I don't know if you can say we're the dominant team of this decade, but we're pretty close. So I'm sure there's a whole generation of kids who see me only as the Lakers coach. They're not familiar with the Bulls at all.”

Yeah, yeah… which is it, Bulls or Lakers?

“I'd have made the jacket with both sides—one side the Lakers, one side the Bulls,” Jackson smiled.

Jackson, though, comes from a time when the art of thoughtful give-and-take was part of being a living and breathing person. It actually mattered what people thought about certain topics whether they were an athlete or not. Sure, guys like Jackson were always asked for their opinions on a bunch of subjects simply because he’s famous and famous people, for some reason, have opinions that matter more than others. It’s the same deal with all the Lakers, because, as forward/reality-TV star Lamar Odom said, “Everyone on this team is Hollywood.”

Odom is right about that, but when it comes to the Lakers there’s one star shinier than the rest.

Now I heard stories about Michael Jordan’s days in Chicago where the reporters that covered the team rarely got a chance to stand next to the guy they were writing about. Sometimes, the stories go, they had a chance to shout questions at him as if he were a president walking across the South Lawn to Marine One. Most of the time Jordan planted himself in the middle of the practice gym or locker room and he was engulfed by cameras and recorders. He was in the middle of that pile up somewhere and the only hope for a lot of writers was to hear one little nugget or word from the man himself.

Toward the end when Jordan was playing for the Wizards, he moved his post-game tête-à-tête to a conference room where questions were shouted as if he were some Hollywood diva ensnared in some controversy. Cameras flashed and shouted voices collided in midair and made an awful mess of white noise. Sometimes Spike Lee was waiting in the wings.

That wasn’t quite the case with Kobe on Friday night at the Wachovia Center, though between the snap shots from camera phones and the boom-mic men blindly walking backwards, it would have been easy for someone to get run over.

All that just to hear what a kid from Lower Merion Township had to say about basketball.

Actually, the brunt of the questioning was focused on the back-and-forth scoring showdown between Bryant and Allen Iverson during the third quarter of Friday night’s action. Suddenly, for a handful of minutes, it was as if it was 2001 again for Iverson. For Bryant, however, it was just another Friday night. Nevertheless, the awful truth that no one really wanted to admit—especially Bryant—was that as soon as the Lakers’ star switched over to guard Iverson, the show stopped.

There is only so much room in the spotlight.

“He’s a scorer, he and I both,” Bryant said. “That’s what we do. We can score when we’re 70 years old.”

These days Bryant does a little more.

“It’s evident that he is one of the best ever to do it,” Iverson said. “He goes out there night in and night out and plays the same way every night.”

And every night he gets wrapped in a cocoon of otherworldliness. People steel up some nerve and get brave. They ask questions and snap pictures. They want to ask questions and hear answers no matter how mundane they are.

They want a moment where someone spectacular shows some humanness no matter how bizarre the setting really is.

January 14, 2010

An hour before tip-off, Sam Dalembert did not look like he was ready to play a basketball game. Understandably drained and confused by what had occurred in his birth country a little more than 24-hours before, Dalembert eyes gave answers to questions that his mind could not.

Was his aunt OK, despite the news that her house had been “cracked” by the earthquake that registered 7.0 on the Richter Scale a little before 5 p.m. in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on Tuesday? Or, when would the next message from Dalembert’s father arrive? Just before the tiny Carribean island lost power, the elder Dalembert sent an e-mail signifying they were, “OK.”

“OK” is a relative term, of course. Even in the most technologically advanced country, an earthquake the magnitude of the one that devastated Haiti on Tuesday would leave its mark. Put that earthquake in the poorest country on this side of the globe that was still reeling from being battered by four hurricanes since September of 2008, and it sounds so cruel.

It isn’t enough that the average Haitian lives on less than $2 a day and had been governed by infamous dictatorships for decades, now the people on the poor island are waiting for the aid to arrive while gathering the dead amidst total destruction.

They are poor, Dalembert says, but proud.

"A huge part of me will always love the country, love the people in it. We're strong people, we deal with stuff. No matter what's going on, we always find a way to stay happy. We joke about situations when most people wouldn't make a joke," he said. "That's why people say, 'Why is Sam always smiling?' When you come from where I come from and where you are right now, every day is a blessing. I don't have to deal with finding food. I don't have to deal with looking in my freezer and not finding food."

Dalembert’s birth city Port-au-Prince, so close to the epicenter of the quake, is a city larger than Philadelphia yet currently has no operational hospital. Actually, it had nothing before the earthquake hit, but now it has death and destruction without hyperbole. Haiti, as it was, is gone.

Moreover, Dalembert’s father was in Port-au-Prince with members of his family on a business trip when the earthquake hit. Before Wednesday’s game against the Knicks, Dalembert said his dad sent a message via an e-mail from his aunt with the news of his whereabouts.

But that was more than a day ago and no word has trickled out since.

“Yesterday I turned the TV on and just kept on watching and watching and just waiting for an answer in front of the phone. I contacted everybody I know there, but no answer,” Dalembert said before Wednesday’s game. “I wasn’t able to get as much information as I wanted to. It’s really frustrating. All I’ve got is watching the screen. I’m here and there’s nothing I can do. It’s really killing me right now.”

How does anyone attempt to understand the unfathomable? Better yet, how does a guy show up for work with so much uncertainty in his life? If Dalembert decided to check out and coast through the New York Knicks, who would have blamed him?

“Hopefully, for two hours he can escape,” Sixers’ coach Eddie Jordan said before the 93-92 defeat.

“I could tell that today was a different day for him because he wasn’t the same old Sam,” Allen Iverson said. “When I saw it on the news last night the first thing I did was call him, and you could tell in his voice he was struggling with the situation.”

There were two ways Dalembert could have gone against the Knicks… he could have disappeared, or he could have lit it up.

Dalembert lit it up with a season-high 21 rebounds to go with 12 points on 6-for-8 shooting.

“He showed what type of a professional he is—he came out here and did everything he had to do for us on the basketball court to give us a chance to win, and that shows a lot of character on his part,” Iverson said.

It turned out that playing basketball was the easy part. It became a type of therapy since there was no one for Dalmebert to call and the only way he can do to help is send money. In fact, the Sixers revealed after the game that in addition to pulling down all those rebounds, Dalembert was organizing a benefit to raise funds for more aid for Haiti.

For now though, all he can do is wait and hope that maybe he’ll hear something soon.

“It’s tough, frustrating,” Dalembert said. “It’s crazy, out of your mind. It’s like you’re locked in a cage. You cannot move. You cannot do anything. I tried to go over there, but they said there’s no plane going there. Nobody can go there.

“There’s really nothing I can do except play, then send money and help out.”

Imagine not being able to talk to your family. Or imagine not knowing whether your closest friend, father, aunt, brother or sister are alive or dead.

Imagine having all of that weighing you down into an emotional abyss as if it where an anchor on the Titanic...

December 17, 2009

Sometimes it’s easy to get excited about the littlest things. Maybe it’s a new episode of a TV show, or a favorite meal. Or it could be a small gift or a short trip to a favorite place.

You know what they say—sometimes it’s the small things that matter the most.

So when the team you’ve written about for the past 10 years gets the game’s best pitcher who just so happened to be the most-coveted player on the trade/free-agent market, it should be pretty exciting…

Right?

Yawn.

Sitting there and listening as Roy Halladay was being introduced to us media types during Wednesday’s press conference in Citizens Bank Park, a different feel pervaded. Usually, during such settings it’s not very difficult to get swept up in the emotion. After all, teams usually trot in family members, agents, front-office types and other hangers-on. In rare cases, like Wednesday’s Halladay presser for example, the national cable TV outlets turned out to aim cameras at the proceedings.

But when a team introduces its third former Cy Young Award winner since July after trading one away, there’s a tendency to become a little used to big events like introductory press conferences. Think about it—this year the Phillies have added Pedro Martinez, Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay. That’s five Cy Young Awards right there.

At the same time, Ryan Howard, Cole Hamels, Charlie Manuel, Jayson Werth and Ruben Amaro Jr. all got new contracts since the Phillies won the World Series. Not to mention, the team signed Placido Polanco, Brad Lidge, Raul Ibanez and, of course, had that little parade down Broad Street.

In other words, you can see why it was easy not to get too worked up over Halladay’s arrival. That’s doubly the case considering the Flyers fired a coach and the Sixers welcomed back Allen Iverson within the past two weeks. Add in the facts that the deal for Halladay took three days to come together after Amaro spent the week in Indianapolis denying involvement of anything and it’s easy to get a little jaded.Wait… is Ruben denying he was even in Indianapolis now?

Of course with success comes boredom. In fact, a wise man once told me that championships were boring and bad for business. Perhaps he is correct, because while people are excited about the recent developments with the Phillies, they also are expected now. It’s not quite complacency, but during the past decade every Philadelphia team has been in the mix to acquire the top players on the market. Sure, we’re still getting used to all of this largesse and therefore go a little wild for guys like Halladay, but really…

Been there, done that.

That brings us to the grand point—this is the greatest time ever to be a Philadelphia sports fan. Ever. Since 2001, every team but the Flyers have been to the championship round of the playoffs and every team has made gigantic, stop-the-sports-world acquisitions.

Certainly that wasn’t always the case. A friend’s dad often tells the story about how he and his friends were amazed that a Philadelphia team could get a player like Julius Erving, and I remember watching on TV when Pete Rose signed his four-year, $3.2 million deal with the Phillies. The fact that the Pete Rose signing was on live TV proves how big it was because, a.) there weren’t a whole lot of channels on the dial back then. Just 12 and none of them offered all sports programming. Cable? What?

And, b.) I didn’t even live in the Philadelphia region when Rose signed. Hell, I didn’t even live in Pennsylvania.

Oh, there were other big deals, too. Like when the Sixers traded Caldwell Jones to get Moses Malone, for instance. But they were few and far between. For every Moses, there was always a Lance Parrish lurking at the podium ready to take questions about how he will deliver the championship.

As far as those big moves go, the mid-season trade for Dikembe Mutombo was the first major move for us at the CSNPhilly.com site. We had three people on the staff back then and the trade came down on a snowy February afternoon that kept us cooped up in our little corner of the second floor in the Wachovia Center. Better yet for the Sixers, the deal for Mutombo was one of the few that worked out as designed. Mutombo gave the team the defense and presence in the middle it lacked and made it to the NBA Finals.

With Shaq and Kobe in mid dynasty, a trip to the finals for a team like the Sixers was as good as winning it all.

Jim Thome’s arrival was bigger yet. Not only was Thome the biggest name on the free-agent market, but also he was a symbol that there were big changes coming. Of course the unforgettable moment of Thome’s first visit to Philly was when he popped out of his limo to sign autographs and pose for pictures with the union guys from I.B.E.W. who held an impromptu rally outside the ballpark to try and sway the slugger to sign with the Phillies.

Moreover, Thome’s introductory press conference was memorable because the big fella was reduced to tears when talking about the switch from the Indians. It was a scene that hadn’t been repeated in these parts until Allen Iverson got a bit weepy when talking about his return to Philadelphia.

Oh yes, Philadelphia will make a guy cry.

Or maybe even do a bunch of sit-ups in the front yard.

Maybe in a different era, the acquisition of Roy Halladay would be a bigger deal. Maybe when the contract plays itself out—potentially five years and $100 million—we’ll view it differently. Until then he’s just another big name in a veritable cavalcade of superstars that seem to wind up in our town.

December 02, 2009

Every night on several channels on the dial, one can watch repeats of Seinfeld and The Simpsons or any other TV show that reached its glory in the 1990s. It’s a wonderful thing, and it works for everyone involved.

For the broadcaster, the old standbys are not only ratings winners, but very attractive to the advertisers. The advertisers, of course, spend the money that makes the world go round and keeps those repeats of Everybody Loves Raymond coming. Meanwhile, the folks at home know that if they need a little chuckle or a chance to unwind with some mindless humor/background noise, just dial it up.

In fact, shows in syndication are so popular that sometimes even the start times of live events like baseball playoffs are pushed back a bit in order to air that one sold episode of Friends.

See, it’s a win-win for everyone.

But according to the 76ers’ general manager Ed Stefanski, his team is not airing this latest repeat for the money or the ratings. Oh sure, the show aspect of it is compelling enough, and when one looks at the attendance numbers for the Sixers this season—the team is next-to-last in average attendance—it’s obvious that something is missing. Whether it’s the bad economy and the holidays approaching or the hangover from back-to-back World Series trips by the Phillies and playoff runs by the Eagles and Flyers, folks haven’t connected with the Sixers.

Of course the current seven-game losing streak and spate of key injuries don’t help either.

So rather than dig up some old I Love Lucy episode to play on the Fan-a-vision above the arena, Stefanski and the Sixers opted to sign Allen Iverson to a non-guaranteed contract. That means if the team doesn’t think it’s working out with Iverson, they can just let him go. You know, kind of like what the Memphis Grizzlies did last week.

Buh-by, A.I.

And like any other re-run we all know how it’s going to end with Iverson. We’ve all seen this show before. In 2006 when Iverson was still with the Sixers, we walked out on the team and coach Maurice Cheeks, failed to show up for practice (Practice?!), and was suspended until the team could find a place to trade him.

Iverson ended up first in Denver where he and Carmelo Anthony couldn’t figure out a way to share the ball. When Detroit came calling with Chauncey Billups offered, it was a too good of a deal for Denver to pass up.

You know how it goes from here. Iverson was relegated to bench duty, a tantrum followed, and then he quit on Detroit and Memphis. No, as far as ungraceful exits go it’s not quite Willie Mays tripping in the outfield with the New York Mets or Johnny Unitas wearing that gaudy San Diego Chargers uniform, but it was perfectly clichéd nonetheless.

If there is earth to be scorched or bridges to burn, Iverson is your man.

But that’s not why the Sixers dialed up Iverson. That would be way too easy for even the most cynical of us to scoff at. No, this time the non-guaranteed contract and the relative bottom-basement $650,000 salary if the team chooses to keep Iverson for the rest of the season is way too convenient to pass up.

“We made a basketball decision here when we found out that Lou Williams will be out close to eight weeks, which is 30-plus games,” Stefanski said.

“Allen was the best free agent out there for what we need right now.”

In other words, chances are the Sixers wouldn’t even give Iverson a second look had Williams not been hurt. Sure, Iverson still puts the fannies in the seats (in this town) and as far as soap operas go there has never been anything like him in the history of Philly sports. So when thinking about this move look no further than at the Phillies and their mid-season signing of Pedro Martinez last summer. In need of a dependable, No. 5 starter, the general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. took a flier on the three-time Cy Young Award winner and one of the best right-handed pitchers in a generation with the caveat that if it didn’t work out, the team could waive him.

No fuss, no muss.

As it turned out, Pedro ended up pitching a couple of gems during the regular season and one in the NLCS before taking two starts in the World Series. Obviously, that move worked out.

Don’t expect the Sixers to get to the NBA Finals (or even the playoffs) just because they signed Iverson. After all, he couldn’t start for the lowly Memphis Grizzlies and even the New York Knicks didn’t want any part of Iverson. But as a stop-gap, ahem answer, Iverson might just be good enough.

Nope, this is the perfect scenario for Iverson and the Sixers. This is a repeat with some DVD extras in that it can be sold as a farewell tour of sorts. It can be billed as the extended swan song of a career that, statistically-speaking, is more than Hall-of-Fame worthy.

So break out the old “Practice” video and the dizzying step-over on Tyronn Lue because Iverson is back. No, he’s no longer the answer, but he sure is a lot more entertaining than anything else that’s on.